Social: Issues of personality, culture, gender and situation in explaining obedience and prejudice. Use of two different theories to explain prejudice (Realistic Conflict and Social Identity) and obedience (Agency and Social Impact). Cognitive: Four models of memory...
Similarities There is a lot of research evidence to support both of them (SLT – Bandura, Ross & Ross, SFP – Rosenthal and Jacobson) A variety of methods have been used to test them They are both nurture based Differences SLT considers reinforcement whereas SFP...
Social: Controls over variables in lab experiments can lead to replicability and high reliability. However bias in questionnaires raises issues of validity. Can be criticised for not being able to generalise findings to real world. Cognitive: One of the most...
The media refers to ways of communicating information to the public such as TV, radio, newspapers, adverts, films and video games. The vast majority of us see more criminality in the media that in real life. A lot of what we see is designed to attract our attention...
Social: Obedience found not to be influenced by gender (Milgram). However, there are cultural differences (collectivistic versus individualistic) in obedience. Cognitive: Sebastian and Hernandez Gil found differences in digit span length among English and Spanish...
TEPs are used to obtain desirable behaviour in a closed institution such as a prison. They are used for both juvenile and adult offenders and are a form of behaviour modification. They are based on the idea of Operant Conditioning and reinforcement to encourage...
Social: Role of authoritarian personality and upbringing in obedience and prejudice. Realistic Conflict and Social Identity focus on situational factors that cause conflict. May be oversimplified. Personality theories do not ignore nurture side – in fact personality...
The TEP can be administered by anyone who works at the prison without the need for specialist training. This means that they are fairly cheap to run. Hobbs and Holt investigated the effectiveness of TEPs with boys in a correctional institution. Behaviours like rule...
Social: Changes from Milgram (1960s) and replication work of Burger (2009). Similarly, Cohrs further examined work of Adorno on personality and prejudice. Cognitive: Baddeley’s work studying STM and LTM led to WMM. This model was later added to (episodic buffer in...
AMPs focus on those with aggressive behaviour that needs to be controlled. Anger is considered a normal, healthy response, but if it develops into a rage that takes a person over it is not healthy and puts a strain on the body. It can trigger angry outbursts which may...
Social: Making people obey authority and socialising them into an agentic state from a young age. Knowledge of how to induce and reduce prejudice within individuals and groups. Can help to prevent blind obedience and manipulate obedience, ie positions of authority...
Ireland looked at 50 young male prisoners completing an AMP and 37 who were the control – both groups had committed similar offences and had similar anger levels. Behaviour was assessed at 2 weeks before and 8 weeks after the course – there was a 92% improvement for...
Ainsworth is known for taking a cross-cultural approach to studying child psychology. She implemented the same procedure of experiments in different cultures and then drew comparisons between the different places. There is an issue with nature-nurture when it comes to...
Daycare is any form of non-parental care, for example care provided by nurseries or childminders. The EPPE Project The EPPE project ran from 1997-2003 and was Europe’s largest longitudinal investigation into the effects of pre-school education on childhood. It aimed...
Longitudinal studies follow a particular group over a period of time. A test or observation is repeated over the study which usually lasts a long time and allows all the data to be gathered. For example, to study the effects of age a researcher might study a group of...
Laboratory experiments look for cause-and-effect relationships by controlling as much as possible, implementing an artificial task in an artificial and controlled environment. Everything is kept as identical as possible, except for the independent variable (IV) which...
Bowlby was a psychoanalyst who followed the ideas of Freud and believed that an infant was strongly affected by the beginning of their life. By attachment, he meant a warm, continuous, loving relationship with one person – attachment is a two-way emotional bond where...
Field experiments are based in real situations. They have all the features of an experiment with the manipulation of an IV to see the effect that it has on the DV but it all happens in a natural environment. They still aim to find cause-and-effect conclusions. The use...
Harlow’s study of the monkeys demonstrated attachment and the importance of attachment in relationships. The baby monkeys were removed from their mothers and offered two wire mothers instead. One was covered in soft towel and the other provided food but was hard. The...
Aims To look at the effect of being part of a field experiment related to eyewitness recall and photo identification, and how a disguise would affect retrieval. He also wanted to see if instructions given before recall to review the incident would affect...
Ainsworth went to live in Uganda to study mother-child reactions. She proposed a link between the responsiveness of the mother and the reactions of the child. Some children’s attachments were secure and comfortable while others were tense and full of conflict. She...
There is reliability because the results support those of the meta-analysis of Haber and Haber (2001). It was in the pps natural environment – they were going about their normal business when approached and this suggests that it has ecological validity. Controls over...
In Uganda Ainsworth studied 26 families, gathering information about mother-child relationships. She also interviewed and gathered data about the parent’s sensitivity. Mothers who knew a lot about their babies when interviewed were sensitive to their children’s needs...
Field studies are not experiments. They don’t study a cause-and-effect relationship and they don’t manipulate an IV to see the effect that it has on a DV. Rather they use a real life environment and a real life event and situation. They tend to produce qualitative...
The same procedure was used across cultures which means that it can be compared which gives the findings more reliability. Also, there seems to be consistency with the same three attachment types identified. In general, the majority of children were securely attached...
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) describes and explains criminal behaviour in terms of modelling. It means that behaviour is observed through watching others (this can be through the media) and then replicated by the observer. Four cognitive processes are...
Deprivation Deprivation occurs when an infant is separated from their primary caregiver. Short Term Deprivation Examples of short term deprivation include daycare and hospitalisation (either for the child or their attachment figure). Before Bowlby’s work, hospitals...
Privation is different from deprivation in that a child will not have formed any attachment and will lack almost all types of socialisation. Rutter compared 111 Romanian orphans with 52 British children and a sub-group of Romanians who had only spent a few weeks in an...
Replacement Attachment Figure James and Joyce Robertson became involved in what was witnessed in hospitals. They filmed and followed children whose mothers were going into hospital. One child, John, was 18 months and he stayed in a residential nursery. He tried to get...
This cognitive explanation was put forward by Baren-Cohen in 1997. He believed the social problems autistic children have could be explained by the way the child perceives themselves and others in their social world. To be socially competent we need to mind read in...
Baren-Cohen et al (2005) developed this theory which is a biological theory. It identified that males and females are typically stronger at specific tasks – males tend to excel at mental rotation, targeting objects, mathematical reasoning and systemising whereas...
Difficulties in Making Friends Children often have obsessive interests which other children do not understand. They also tend to live in their own world. Their lack of empathy can lead to them coming across as uncaring and insensitive. Autistic children often struggle...
Background Genie’s mother had a stormy relationship with her husband who threatened to beat her and she lived in fear. He was violent towards her and didn’t want children. When their first child was born she cried a lot but seemed healthy. Her father locked her in the...
The case study gathered a lot of information. The data collected was rich, detailed and thorough – they had both qualitative and quantitative data. Also because they used many different methods to gather the data there is some validity. The study gave Genie a...
Case studies allow data to be gathered that is in depth and detailed and they usually study an individual or group of people who are connected in some way. Whoever is being studied becomes the focus of the case study. Case studies tend to be reliable because they use...
Aims To test the maternal deprivation hypothesis which associated early separation with a risk of behavioural disorders, especially affectionless psychopathy. Procedures The study was carried out at the London Child Guidance Clinic from 1936-1939. Bowlby gathered...
Promotion and maintenance of health Avoidance, diagnosis, and treatment of illness Improvement of health care provision Focuses on areas of health where mental processes are involved e.g. sleep, stress, drug misuse, how people cope with life threatening illnesses, and...
Substance misuse Addiction to a substance that causes disruption in everyday life Use of a drug in a way that affects the individual’s mental and physical health Interferes with social and personal functioning Synapse Tiny gap between axon terminal and dendrite In the...
Animals are used in laboratory studies in health psychology to investigate the effects of drugs Mice, rats, pigeons Genetically similar to humans Good when we cannot use people Controlled lab experiments – IV, DV, hypothesis Can find cause and effect Can study an...
Laboratory studies Aim to investigate the effects of drugs on mental and physical processes Data gained is used to further understanding of the nature of a psychoactive drug Objective, quantitative measurements – brain scans Behavioural measurements – speed of...
Learning Approach – Social Learning Theory Observe role models taking drugs e.g. celebrity in media Identify with the role model – want to do the same Become motivated to take drugs and be like their role model Start imitating their role model’s behaviour of taking...
Both explanations can be tested with animal studies However, data gained from animal studies is hard to generalise to humans Neither explanation can give reason as to why some people are more likely to become addicted to a substance than others The learning approach...
Methadone – treatment in heroin dependence (Biological Approach) Synthetic opiate – similar in chemical structure to heroin – has a similar effect at the synapse – replaces heroin at synapse Taken orally as a liquid Addicts assessed and level of methadone is...
Scared Campaign 2008 – description Using the concept of children being scared of a parent dying Targeted at parental conscience Smoking parents are encouraged to identify with the parent being portrayed on the advertisement (TV) Exploits parental protectiveness of...
Blattler et al 2002 Heroin maintenance programme – Switzerland Aim To see whether supplying heroin on a medical programme, combined with therapy, would reduce cocaine use among participants Sample 266 heroin addicts who also take cocaine 168 male – 98 female Original...
What is the key issue? Whether or not drug abuse can be treated Why is the topic a key issue? Drug misuse and addiction have so many underlying dimensions and disrupt so many aspects of an individual’s life Treatments must help the individual stop using drugs and...
Describe how you carried out your practical investigation As out key issue is ‘can drug abuse be treated?’ I sourced two newspaper articles from ‘The Guardian’ and ‘Daily Mail’ websites, focusing on treatments with a psychological rather than biological basis Both of...
Naturalistic Observations Naturalistic observations are very useful in child psychology and they have been used to observe play and language development. Because they are in a natural setting they show natural behaviour which is what the researcher wants to see. They...